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new fires. Annie turned with it as it worked its way around the trees. The timber was dry, combustible, ready, just ready, to flame.
        A whoosh of fire from behind caused her to wheel around. The flames now had a life of their own, feeding off their burning neighbours, catching flying fragments, the blaze growing. She shouted as if to warn the trees themselves.
        She staggered backwards, almost falling, for the conflagration had already become fierce and was spreading fast. She knew she had to get down into the valley so that the Forest Service could be alerted by field telephone. My God, the blaze was growing so quickly, the trees catching one after the other in swift succession, and the light, the light… where was the light?
        There. Before her. Near the trail that had brought her here to this spot, touching the overhanging branches, kindling them. Annie cried out when she realized what was happening.
        She ran towards the rough path, but it was too late. A billow of flame exploded from one tree to another, cutting off her escape. She whirled around, then around again. The fire had encircled her. Every way she turned the trees were blazing. She made a break for it, but a burning branch crashed in front of her as if deliberately, a conspiracy between fire and forest to thwart her.
        Annie stumbled backwards. Her arms went up to protect her face from the heat, her skin already beginning to tighten and blister. There was no escape. The fire had fanned out beyond this circle; it was spreading at an unbelievable rate. It was as though a solid wall of flame had been erected around her.
        She clawed at her shirt collar as the oxygen in the air was swallowed up, and she sank to her knees, aware that there was nowhere to run, no place to hide from this furious heat. It pained her to keep her eyes open, but she wanted to see it again, wanted to look upon the light once more.
        And there it was, quite still, made pale, a faint star, by the fire that engulfed it. It was no longer a wondrous thing to her.
        Annie retched, began to choke.
        She attempted to rise again, unwilling to submit to this awful fate. But it was no use. Her strength had gone. As she crumpled to the smoking forest floor, her hair beginning to smoulder, she thought of her dead husband. Louis' image was smiling.
        And as the heat and lack of pure air overwhelmed her, Annie's grimace of defeat and pain was not unlike a smile itself.
        

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        'We're going down, we're going down, we're…'
        Rivers' eyes snapped open and all dream-images vanished.
        He lay there on the bed, only half covered by the sheet, his body damp with perspiration, his mind momentarily numbed.
        'Oh sh…' he murmured and swept the cover away. He limped towards the open window, falling to his knees before he got there, a hand reaching up for the thin bars to haul himself closer. Rivers breathed in the humid early morning air, forcing calmness upon himself, the throbbing pain of his injured knee bringing reality into sharper focus.
        'It's over,' he told himself, hands straining against the metal bars. 'You bloody fool, it's over…'
        His forehead rested on the edge of the sill for a few moments before he turned and slumped to the floor, his back resting against the wall. He stared at the rumpled bed as fragments of his dream joined as a whole. He began to tremble.
        Only the persistent pain roused him from the bleak reverie.
        Rather than get to his feet, Rivers slid himself back to the bed; still on the floor, he took the pain-pulser from the bedside table. Adjusting the setting to HIGH, he pushed the blunted point of the instrument into the hollow beside his knee-joint, finding the conductor-implant there and pressing the pulser's button. It took no more than a few seconds for the pain to ease, but Rivers let the current run for a full minute before